Dear Colleagues,
Problem:
W3C HTML 4.0 forbids including the BORDER= WIDTH= HEIGHT= keywords
as part of an <INPUT TYPE=image tag.
Netscape (NS) 3.03 and 4.05 seem to accept these 3 keywords
and they do seem to help the browser reserve display space
so the web page displays quicker and allow the provision of
a colored border to help the user see that this image is
clickable.
Solution:
Adjust the HTML standard to allow future browser products to
treat the <INPUT TYPE=image tag very, very similar to the
way they treat the <IMG tag, allowing all <IMG tag keywords
on the <INPUT TYPE=image tag with equivalent functionality.
Rationale:
Currently, images referenced in an <INPUT TYPE=image tag are
like "second class citizens" in that fewer of their
important attributes can be specified than when images are
referenced in an <IMG tag.
This makes it impossible (without some JavaScript) for
images used in forms to look and behave as well as images
used by themselves or inside of <A tags, yet the decision as
to whether the image button should be implemented as a <FORM
or as an <A should be left to the web page developer.
And the web page developer should not be punished for using
a <FORM instead of an <A with clickable images by slower
page loading and the absence of a colored image border, or
by being forced to use a JavaScript workaround.
And the W3C HTML 4.0 <BUTTON tag seems a complex and more
difficult to implement way to achieve this capability.
(The sample web page I used to investigate the problem is,
as of 7/21/98, at
http://comp.uark.edu/~finnell/javascript.html .)
Sincerely,
Charles A. Finnell
http://comp.uark.edu/~finnell/